INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
April 7, 2002
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #66 of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, a newsletter that delivers relevant and timely legal research information, and other fun stuff, to your inbox every Sunday. If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to do the same! To subscribe, all you have to do is send an e-mail to ilrw-subscribe@topica.com. It’s free!
And away we go…..
News Update
Teoma’s Back
Remember Teoma, the search engine I reviewed last year? Well, Ask Jeeves bought it and is rolled it out again this past week. Many of the articles are calling Teoma a Google Killer, but I’m not so sure. Give it a try.Free Lexis!
If you don’t already have access to the Lexis service, be sure to take advantage of its new offer of a free week of service. Offer ends April 18.Help Desk
For the past two weeks, we have taken a look at ways to protect yourself from prying eyes and malicious hackers. The last security tip I’ll give has to do with your Internet surfing activities. Are you ever worried your boss or significant other might snoop on your computer and discover the sites you’re visiting? Then make sure all that incriminating information is erased from your computer! You can do it manually, of course, but to thoroughly eliminate all files you’ll have to
- Empty your browser's cache
- Empty your browser’s History folder
- Empty your PC’s Temp folder
- Empty your Recycle Bin
- Remove entries from the Find, Documents, and Run commands on your Start menu
That’s a lot of work each time you surf, eh? If you don’t want to do all of this, check out Window Washer, which will automatically clean all of the above every time you shut down your computer. It’s free to try, $30 to keep.
Finally, a quick trick for those of you who want to quickly hide what you’re doing from prying eyes. Just press your Windows Key (the one with the Windows sign, two keys to the right of your space bar, and the M key (Windows Key-M) – not at the same time – and all of your windows are automatically minimized. A cool way to clear your desktop in a hurry.
Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me a line at tmighell@swbell.net– I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!
Legal Research in the First State
It’s that time again – time to explore state legal research links, and time for those of you not from that state to skip ahead to the next section of the newsletter. This week we’ll tackle Delaware, the First State. Hopefully all of you will find something useful to keep for the next time you need research from this state.
As always, we start with the state portal. The home page is simply designed, and my only criticism of it is that the state should have thought twice before putting a picture of their governor on the page – not a pretty picture. That said, you’ll easily find what you’re looking for here; there are links for residents, businesses, state employees, governments, and visitors. Clicking on each button will take you to a friendly Yahoo!-style directory customized for each area. Especially helpful is the link to Delaware’s e-Government. There links to all government services available online are provided. One of the cool links I found was their real-time traffic information; I’ve seen sites like this before (Dallas has one), but never with real-time cameras, to show the actual movement of the traffic (Dallas only shows individual snapshots). If you’re looking for a Delaware Agency, you can find them all at the Agency Index.
On to the legislature. At the Delaware State Legislature, you’ll find all the typical links to the Senate and House of Representatives, with biographical information on each legislator and more. There are also good resources for bill tracking, both current bills and past legislature, back to 1997. Delaware’s statutes are maintained by Lexis, and you can also find links to Delaware regulations, Administrative Code, Constitution, and City-Town Charters -- just select one of the links at the upper left.
The judicial branch of Delaware has its own site, where you’ll find links to the various levels of Delaware Courts, from the Supreme Court all the way down to the courts of lesser jurisdiction, including Justice of the Peace Courts. The Supreme Court provides opinions and orders back to 1998, as well as court forms and rules. The Superior Court page is a tremendous resource, with court calendars and loads of information on criminal and civil cases pending in Delaware and online pattern civil jury instructions. Unique to Delaware is its Chancery Court, which handles disputes between corporations and other equity matters. The Corporate Law Clearinghouse sponsored by Widener University also has Chancery Court opinions available. For federal practitioners, Delaware is part of the Third Circuit, has one U.S. District Court and one U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
Finally, let’s take a look at some random Delaware resources, some of which might catch your fancy. If you’re looking for the opinions of Attorney General M. Jane Brady, you can find them at The Attorney General's Office. DelAWARE, the site of the state library, also has a great site. Prospective Delaware lawyers can obtain information on the registration and the bar exam at The Board of Bar Examiners, and you can also research Delaware’s sexual offender registry.
Looking for information on life as a lawyer in Delaware? Well the Delaware Bar Association probably won't help too much – the site is not really all that great; the Delaware Trial Lawyers’ Association seems to have more resources. And Law.com reprints information from the Delaware Law Weekly.
Last but not least, some pages to give you a background on Delaware law and its courts. A Lawyer’s Guide to Delaware, published on Hieros Gamos, is a 1996 article with a nice background on the basics of Delaware law. And the Delaware law firm of Prickett, Jones and Elliot has a page with articles on Delaware law – they are mostly from 2000 and 2001, but they seem to be pretty informative.
Know any Delaware sites I’ve missed? Drop me a line at tmighell@swbell.net and I’ll give you a mention in an upcoming issue!
Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet
Columbia NewsBlaster
Columbia’s Natural Language Processing Group developed the NewsBlaster to determine if a computer could take the news and create a summary that would be manageable to researchers, journalists, and others. The NewsBlaster scans news articles from 13 news sources, including Yahoo! ABC News, CNN, USA Today, and others. Choose from U.S., World, Finance, Entertainment, Science/Technology, and Sports headlines; you’ll get a succinct summary of the headline, and links to all of the original sources. A nifty tool to check out.EEVL: The Internet Guide To Engineering, Mathematics & Computing
EEVL is part of a larger group of search engines I mentioned a few months ago, but it’s so cool it deserves a second look. This may be one of the best sources of engineering, mathematics and computing information on the Internet – EEVL (which stands for Enhanced and Evaluated Virtual Library, by the way) taps into such resources as e-journals, databases, training materials, professional societies, university and college departments, research projects, bibliographic databases, and many more. You can search by keyword, by accessing Key Sites, the EEVL Catalogue, or sites listed within the Catalogue. An extremely worthwhile scientific resource.Global Law Review – India Online
The title may be misleading, and the design fairly simplistic, but this website provides some pretty good links to Indian law. Maintained by Indian lawyer Sandeep Dave, you’ll find a lot of stuff here you may not need – he provides book reviews and “insights” on his law practice. However, the page on Indian research has some terrific sites to explore. He also provides some good explanatory pages on the ins and outs of Indian Law.John S. Herold, Inc. ($$)
This is the online presence of a firm dedicated to specialized research and consulting services, providing clients with “financial, operational and capital markets data with independent analysis of the valuation and performance of the world’s energy companies.” The information provided by this company appears to be fantastic – if only I could tell you how much it cost. Unfortunately, you have to call them to find out the cost of the services. Just have a look at the site; the resources available
include industry insights, energy investment outlook, comparative appraisal of energy companies, merger and acquisition information, and much more. Browse around this site and decide for yourself.E-Commerce Spotlight
I’ve mentioned before how much I love law firms that produce websites on a specific area of law. This is one such place – McBride, Baker & Coles, a Chicago law firm, provides some intriguing information on the state of e-commerce today. You can check out legislative tables from all 50 states and the federal government, or research initiatives on a state-by-state basis, or internationally. The firm also provides some useful resources on regulatory compliance and liability issues arising from the use of information in health care (HIPAA), especially on the Internet.For those of you who hated losing that hour of sleep last night, learn about the History, Rationale, Laws, and Dates of Daylight Savings Time. There’s even a calendar to figure out what dates the time changes for any year you want.
Well, that’s it for Issue #66– I hope you liked it! If you did, pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to subscribe. Also, feel free to drop me an e-mail any time if you have questions, or if you have websites or other topics you want included in a future issue.
Tom Mighell
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